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Many thanks to Tidal for the opportunity to write about two of my biggest heroes, Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn. This essay was published March 7, 2019 to mark Women’s History Month. An excerpt: “My real education in songwriting began that night. You have to be real. The songs come from…

When it comes to poetry, I can think of no other songwriter who gets it the way Gretchen Peters does. A member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Peters wrote “Independence Day,” which became a huge hit for Martina McBride. “Independence Day” catapulted Peters to the…

Florida’s Disney Resort, a palm tree in Fiji and an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – ideas for songs and tunes often emerge from the strangest of circumstances as a packed weekend audience at the Millennium Forum in Derry learned during the final concert of the TransAtlantic Sessions tour. A musica…

A guaranteed best seller every time, Transatlantic Sessions starts its annual perambulation around the U.K. each year as a fixture in the Celtic Connections programme. The formula is simple enough; a, more or less, constant group of musicians, most from over here but a few from over there, joined by…

Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow Figures from the US and UK folk traditions pooled their talents into a 16-strong jam band, and alternated between the spine-tingling and the rollicking by Graeme Virtue 4 out of 5 stars. Towards the end of this epic gig, US dobro guitar-slinger and laid-back master of cer…

More From Gretchen Peters

Burnt Toast & Offerings

You have to watch the quiet ones. Sometimes the loudest truths are served with a whisper. Gretchen Peters, who has written some of country’s most intelligent songs of life’s complications, offers a hushed benediction for a woman emerging from the chilled-over remains of what is truly not enough to flower into full potential.- Holly Gleason / No Depression

Gretchen Peters

If Peters’ ’96 debut, The Secret of Life, had the answers, her edgier follow-up poses the questions, mostly about how to navigate rough emotional terrain. Full of surprises – “Eddie’s First Wife” has a randy lesbian at its center – Peters brings the pop sensibility of Sheryl Crow to meditations on Amelia Earhart and Picasso’s cat. Easy to see why she’s already captured the Brits. B+-Alanna Nash / Entertainment Weekly